1. What you do for your mind and body today are going to impact you tomorrow. If you want a better future, then you’re going to have to start preparing for it today.
2. You don’t have to make grand, sweeping changes in order to better yourself. Instead of suddenly dedicating three hours to the gym each morning and cutting out all junk food, you can start small. You can drink more water. You can stop chewing on your nails. You can take a walk during your lunch break to get your blood pumping. You can substitute after dinner desserts with grapes or watermelon. You can make little changes, easy changes, changes that you can actually make stick.
3. Your mental health impacts your physical health. Even though you might be more concerned with getting six-pack abs than you are with getting your anxiety under control, taking care of your mental health is going to help you in every other area of your world. It’s worth it to treat your mind as a priority.
4. You’re always going to have an excuse to wait until tomorrow to start changing your life for the better. Maybe your schedule is too hectic right now. Maybe you didn’t get enough sleep last night. Maybe you have a bad headache. Maybe you have more important things to focus on at the moment. Even though you’re promising yourself things will calm down soon and you’ll be able to make the change then, it’s probably a lie. Next week you might have different excuses, but you’ll have just as many. That’s why you have to decide whether or not the change is important enough for you to make right now — because if you don’t make it now, you’re going to put it off forever.
5. You’re never going to see results overnight. It can take weeks, months, years for your changes to make a visible impact. That’s why you should start working towards your goals as early as possible. You don’t want to keep procrastinating. The longer you wait, the longer it will be until you see results.
6. You’re not perfect. You’re going to screw up every once in a while. There are going to be weeks when you break your productive streak, and when that happens, you can’t freak out too much. You can’t call yourself a failure. You have to accept what happened and get back to bettering yourself again.
7. Speak kindly to yourself. Remind yourself you can do this. You need to believe in yourself because the second you start doubting yourself is the second you leave yourself vulnerable to quitting.
8. You don’t have to wait until New Years or until your birthday or until you hit rock bottom to start making changes. You don’t need an outside reason to better yourself. The only reason you need is that you care about yourself and you want to live the best life possible.
9. You deserve to be treated with love and respect by your forever person, by your family, by your friends, and most importantly, by yourself. Never forget that. Never let your self-worth waver.
THOUGHT CATALOG